GENEVA -- Several major countries raised concerns during a council meeting last week with ITU’s efforts to spur telecom equipment interoperability with a conformance database, interoperability testing and other measures. Developing countries were largely supportive of the intergovernmental organization’s efforts, but commercial worries weren’t directly addressed. The ITU initiatives were prompted by a 2008 resolution agreed to by almost 100 countries (CD Oct 31/08 p10).

Wireless communications band licensees have long hoarded their spectrum without any serious effort toward deploying services and waited for regulatory relief to make service in the band possible, Sirius XM told the FCC in comments on potential buildout requirements for users of the band. The licensees have no reason to justify the inaction and have simply disregarded the buildout obligations when the spectrum was acquired in 1997 for $13.6 million, it said. “Simply put, WCS licensees have been egregious spectrum warehousers whose actions and words demonstrate a disregard for their buildout obligations, not to mention for the Commissions’ processes,” the company said in comments.

A deal that will bring the NCAA men’s basketball finals to cable every other year after 2015 drew praise from the chairman of the CBS affiliate board, while others said it will help the broadcast network. The network, Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting and the NCAA unveiled the $10.8 billion, 14-year deal Thursday. It calls for national distribution of every game of the tournament beginning next year on CBS and three Turner networks. In 2016, the finals and semifinals will be shared between CBS and TBS (CD April 23 p16). “I applaud his efforts for being able to retain such a premier property on CBS,” said Tim Busch, affiliates chairman and Nexstar chief operating officer. The network and affiliates ran the risk of losing the tournament entirely, he said.

The FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules are “in big legal trouble” in the wake of the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Comcast v. FCC, Commissioner Robert McDowell told reporters Friday. “The concept of a new regulatory regime is in real trouble.” McDowell is skeptical the commission should get more involved in the retransmission consent process, thinks TV spectrum reallocation won’t be held up by Comcast and hopes the regulator deals with an indecency complaint backlog, he said.

In a surprise, CenturyLink agreed to buy Qwest in a $22.4 billion deal, including a $10.6 billion all-stock transaction and $11.8 billion debt, the companies said Thursday. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2011. It’s likely to be approved by regulators within a year with attached conditions, such as an obligation to expand broadband access or to provide it at certain prices, analysts said.

The Media Bureau denied a request by Sky Angel that the FCC let it keep carrying some Discovery Communications networks while its program-access complaint is considered. At the center of the complaint is the question of whether Sky Angel, which distributes pay-TV programming online, qualifies as a multichannel video programming distributor under federal rules.

The provider of radio ratings and representatives of more than 400 stations settled a years’ long dispute over the sampling methodology of portable devices whose implementation led to declines in some broadcasters’ audience share estimates. Thursday’s settlement between the PPM Coalition and Arbitron, provider of Portable People Meters, came after the FCC encouraged both sides to settle, as did a judge overseeing a related case, participants said. Another turning point was said to be the installation of William Kerr as Arbitron CEO in January after Michael Skarzynski resigned suddenly because he mischaracterized testimony on PPMs before the House Oversight Committee (CD Jan 13 p3).

Congress and the FCC should encourage e-care technologies by deploying “significant public resources to deliver broadband” to unserved areas, said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., at a Senate Special Aging Committee hearing Thursday. And rural healthcare providers should receive assistance to buy broadband services if they're not affordable in their area, said Wyden, who guest-chaired the hearing on the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. The senator later talked net neutrality, asking if health care should get a priority lane on wireless broadband.

A rulemaking notice on data roaming concludes that even though wireless broadband is classified as a lightly regulated Title I service, the FCC has the authority to impose data roaming requirements. It was released late Wednesday and approved earlier at that day’s meeting (CD April 22 p4). Agency officials said Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, while not opposing the final notice or seeking to delay it, pushed to have the jurisdiction issue explored in more depth beyond the notice as circulated by Chairman Julius Genachowski.

The FCC’s scramble to find authority for ambitious programs after the Comcast decision doesn’t mean its authority over wireless services and devices should be doubted, advocates told the State of the Mobile Net conference in Washington late Wednesday. The FTC can keep its existing limited authority in wireless, mostly concerning data’s trip “back to the mother ship” from devices, without butting into crucial FCC authority over standards-oriented practices, said Harold Feld, legal director at Public Knowledge.